London Grim Reaper Tour

This 2-hour walking tour covers many must-see sites and stories including Jack the Ripper, the Black Plague, the world’s first psychiatric hospital (Bedlam) and much more. Discover how traitors and criminals were punished and what life was really like for people living in the East End. In a city so full of light and beauty, this walk will show us the darkness waiting behind every corner.

The London Grim Reaper Tour starts by the Sundial outside Tower Hill station and finishes at the Ten Bells pub next to Spitalfields Market.

Crime and punishment in Olde England

Your expert local guide starts the Grim Reaper tour by looking over the Tower of London, believed to be the most haunted building in the city. Whether you believe in spirits or not, the dark history of those who were imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed on its doorstep will give you a new appreciation for crime and punishment in Olde England.

Life in London in the Middle Ages

The 2-hour tour starts in the 1400s, a long time before London had an official police force, when tyrants rules and preyed on the weak. Your local guide will walk you through London’s East End, explaining to the poverty and overcrowding the residents lived in, as well as telling you about the plague pits that were dug when the Black Plague hit, and how patients were treated in Bedlam, the world’s first psychiatric hospital.

The infamous Jack the Ripper

Of course though, no tour of London’s dark history would be complete without discussing Jack the Ripper, who was never caught and never identified. See the Prostitutes’ Church where he picked some of his victims, hear how he gradually got more and more brazen with the murders, discuss some of the suspects, and end the tour near the bar where his final victim was last seen alive.